Live cells stuck together like Velcro could mend broken hearts

It’s not just for shoes. A Velcro-inspired way to bind strips of cells together could be used to make living bandages for the heart.

Tissue-Velcro, as its developers are currently calling it, involves growing heart cells on meshes with tiny holes and hooks. Put the meshes in contact and they snag on to each other, allowing tissue to be built up layer by layer. Over time, the polymer mesh breaks down harmlessly.

After growing on the special mesh for just four days, single-cell layers of rat heart muscle started contracting of their own accord. The team found that a stack of these layers could grow together to contract with the same rhythm.

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That opens up the possibility of making patches to repair the damage caused by heart attacks, or to sculpt scar tissue over wounds in a more seamless way.

Designer tissue

“Each case that a surgeon would be presented with is going to be unique,” says team member Miles Montgomery at the University of Toronto, Canada. “You could build it in situ, almost like designer tissue.” The team plans to seek regulatory approval for human use soon.

“I think this technology is very cool,” says Jay Zhang of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, although he adds that clinical applications are some way off. “The real test is how it works in vivo, to repair hearts, to repair vessels, to repair valves.”

The technique could potentially be used to grow other complex tissues, like those in the skin or liver. “If you can prove that you can do this with notoriously difficult tissue to grow, such as cardiac tissue, then it’s paving the way,” says Montgomery.